Abstract
M.Phil.
In this postmodernist study, resilient working mothers are studied by means of an
autoethnographical strategy. I accordingly examined a small group of South African
working mothers’ experiences, including my own, by blending an evocative and artful
presentation with theory and analysis. In assimilating subjective personal experience
and the broader sociocultural reality, I offer insights into the social world of resilient
working mothers, the challenges they experience, and how they manage to thrive
despite adversity.
As a mother who worked as a minister, I was uniquely situated as a researcher to
share first-hand experiences and to provide in-depth knowledge on working mothers’
resilience. Also, deep reflection on myself and my experiences provided me with an
opportunity to understand my research participants better. Finally, being both mother
and researcher offered the prospect of clarifying, describing and illuminating the
experiences of working mothers, their adversities and their resilience from an insider
perspective.
In addition to my own, I included six other working mothers’ experiences and
perceptions to unravel, describe and obtain an understanding of the cultural and social
context of resilient working mothers. Using the data gathered from interviews,
participant observation and unsolicited documents, including diary entries and
photographs, I constructed a number of narratives. Field notes, interview
transcriptions and a research journal were also used to capture the data and
autoethnographic analytical methods were employed to uncover themes in the data.
Finally, to provide a deeper and richer understanding of resilient working mothers, I
integrated my own concrete experiences and those of the other women with abstract
scholarly concepts.
As I believe evocative writing offers a powerful and meaningful description of
phenomena, I employed various literary genres and art forms to bring the lived
experiences of the working mothers in the study to life. More specifically, I crafted
memoirs, short stories, poetry and dialogue and included non-textual displays like
photographs, illustrations and music to engage the reader...